Abe’s Thanksgiving
Abe says
Trite as it may be I am pretty sure that if we didn’t write about Thanksgiving we should both be fired and you should all demand your money back.
Thanksgiving with my parents on the east coast involved all the standard trappings. Somehow this year I managed to convince my dad to let me do everything, modulo only a few minor incidents. We also apparently avoided the large bowl of white rice that has traditionally graced our dining table. Strangely I kind of missed it.
The important thing though is that the turkey was not brined but instead had two tablespoons of generously herbed butter rubbed underneath the breast skin, another two rubbed on the outside, and was trussed, racked, and roasted at 400° for 30 minutes then at 350° with the breast covered until the breast meat hit 160°. The herb butter idea was shamelessly stolen from Ann, and it was delicious.
Shenanigans can be summed up as: (1) It was supposed to be 500° for 30 minutes à la Alton Brown, but despite countermeasures the oven filled with smoke and the smoke detector went a little crazy (reminiscent of a story about profiteroles I will one day retell), and (2) Part of the cavity was still frozen after nearly 5 days defrosting in the fridge. Despite emergency defrost action, while the breast and thigh were cooked a few parts required re-roasting following after-dinner disassembly.
I kinda miss the rice too.
I’m glad you got enough cooked turkey to make a meal. I haven’t tried the buttering both sides of the skin trick but it sounds yummy. :-)
Did you roast the turkey on a rack over a pan? I’ve read that it’s the fat that drips and spatters that makes a lot of smoke. I’m unclear how true that is. I think that’s why sometimes people roast meat on top of a bed of big chunks of veggies.
Meilin, yes, the turkey was in a rack over a pan.
The fat will smoke somewhere around 400°F, and smoke profusely by the time you hit 500°. I just poured water in the pan to stop the smoking, but at the rate it was going I wasn’t in the mood for steamed turkey…
Of course, the other reason to roast meat on top of veggies is that veggies are delicious after soaking up meat drippings.
Yum… delicious meat-infused roasted veggies. So 400 is the limit for beep-free cooking. I’ll try to remember that.
Btw, you two don’t post enough. More please! :-)